If you are one of those non-believers who think all websites are created equally, then visit a site hosted by Google or Yahoo, or a site such as Facebook or Twitter to see the difference. It should be immediately obvious that good website development is of paramount importance. To discover more about designing an effective website, read on.
Pay attention to the colors on your website to make sure they match. Your content should be read easily without assistance or adjustment. Dark text on a light background is the easiest for your visitor to read. If you are uncertain about the effectiveness of your color scheme choice, try it out on a friend and solicit feedback from them.
Be very careful to remove outdated content from your site. If the page a viewer clicks on is promoting something that happened a year ago, you just lost a reader. People want the most accurate information available, and by leaving outdated information online you’re showing you don’t really care what they want. Mark a calendar for when you will sit down and update your website, being careful to take off anything that is not current or relative anymore.
Always check your website from a variety of browsers in different areas of the country or world. You have to make sure that you’re seeing your site through the eyes of all customers. Research the most popular browsers and fix your site accordingly. You will want to have a person using a different computer operating system check on your site as well.
Make sure that every action can be cancelled if needed. This includes anything from filling out a simple set of questions, up to registering for a product or service. Visitors with second thoughts are not going to appreciate being locked into an action. They will feel that they are being forced to act against their wishes, and it will be unlikely that they will want to return to your site after such an experience.
Set up your website to store personal information that users might need to reenter multiple times. When a visitor fills out a registration form on your website, for instance, your site should hang onto that information, and use it to fill out data fields for the visitor on subsequent interactive pages ahead of time. This “sticky” information can make the process easier and smoother for visitors and they’ll appreciate it.
Leave out the frames if you want the website you create to be optimized for the major search engines. Frames are good for some situations, but they don’t allow your content to be indexed. This will preclude you from having a positive ranking. If you don’t do what’s necessary to make sure that your site is not ranked very high, people will not find your site very easily.
Pay attention to color combinations in your design. Your content should be read easily without assistance or adjustment. It is generally agreed upon that dark text on a light background is the easiest to read. If you are not sure whether or not your chosen color scheme is user friendly, ask for some feedback from some of your friends.
White can be a smart and effective choice when you’re contemplating which color should be the background for your site. Content is generally more readable on white backgrounding, and this makes your page look both more professional and trustworthy. When there is a more complicated design in the background, it can be very distracting, and make your website look less professional. Simple instead of complex is always better where backgrounds are concerned.
Avoid pop-up advertisements at all costs. Including PPC ads to make some money on sites is a big design element that does not irritate your users as much as pop-ups that bother their view. It will cause people not to want to come back. Use simple ads and skip the wild and intrusive pop-ups.
Hosting your own website might not be a good choice. Design as much as you can yourself, but letting someone else host it will free up some of your time, allowing you to work on other things.
Do not publish any site pages without verifying all the links are working. Visitors will be annoyed if they click on broken links. You can do this manually or run a software program if you like.
It is important to do your research. Become educated about your particular niche so you can appeal to your target audience. Figure out ways to reach this essential group. This extra will pay off in profits at the end of the day.
Keep your content brief, especially if you are new to website design. You don’t want to add a bunch of stuff that is going to fluster you because this can make your visitors confused as well when they come visit your site.
Well-placed graphics that look professionally done can really entertain the people coming to your site. Add interest to your site by wrapping text around the images. Content that looks creative and well-done will keep visitors interested and want to return.
Always give viewers the option to cancel a current action. This might include completing forms, browsing your site, or registering for newsletters. If you don’t let visitors back out of an incomplete action, it can be perceived as forcing them to do something, which will probably make them go elsewhere.
Free Software
Remember that you don’t have to spend a lot of money to design your website. There are lots of costly, fancy tools for website design; however, without fail, each one has a less costly (or even free) counterpart. For example, you can use free software to help you create websites and add design elements to all your pages. Open source software usually does the same things as paid software. Looking for free software is a way to save money, not a loss of time.
If you are going to be a website designer, unleash your inner artist. Inspiration can strike at any time, so be ready for it! Draw sketches for possible design ideas when you think of something interesting. Make sure you always write down, or draw your ideas, so you won’t forget them later.
Make use of free software in your site setup. Many people falsely believe that they need to purchase expensive software in order to create a good website, however, there are currently numerous excellent free tools on the market that help you to develop a very professional looking website. You simply must be willing to find these helpful design resources.
White space is a key element in website creation, so many sure you have some! Using white space makes your website easy to read. This makes your site’s message much easier to understand and process.
Even if you do not produce a site worthy of the best design firms, it is in your best interest to give it a shot. Overall, the chances of making a worldwide known site is slim. If you have the right skill set in website development, you can develop websites that work just as easily as the major ones and yours will look better. The above advice will help you get started, so begin brainstorming!